I was asked this question today and I thought many of you might want to see how I answered. I also remembered the section in the plan Will I Get Better? and I copy some of that below for you too.
Q: Will it work?
I’m not in the business of promising the earth, or a cure for that matter. It just can’t be done, even though I know many of you tell me off for not being more positive and motivating :). The truth of the matter is this:
1. I have taken all the current thinking on gluten and hyper-permeability, auto-immunity, inflammation and allergy
2. Advanced it in terms of my truly gluten free (ie. gluten in all grains) stance, not least with the supplement protocol and the specific gut barrier-harmful lectins, neither of which has been done anywhere else to my knowledge
3. Investigated what we need to know and worked with several labs to get the tests available for us, then
4. Developed the Barrier Plan incorporating the whole lot.
The plan is based on tons of research that suggests it will work. People on similar (less advanced to my mind) protocols have seen their auto-immunity, inflammation and allergy scores reduce and disappear. We are already seeing Barrier Plan people starting to get foods back into their diet, inflammation lowering and major symptoms calming down.
Q: Will I be able to have grains again?
I don’t think we will ever be able to have grains again. What is it one of gluten doctors says – “you can’t be a little bit pregnant, and you can’t be a little bit gluten sensitive!” Says it all. But, I am confident we will be able to tolerate other foods and, most importantly, stop the damaging inflammatory and auto-immune processes kicked off by the gluten.
Q: What’s so different about this plan?
The difference with this Plan is that it is targeted more squarely at allergy and goes much further than any other I know of in terms of gluten and lectin sensitivity, especially with regard to the supplement protocol, all of which normally contain grains; I have gone to great lengths to find suitable grain-free ones which, trust me, is nigh on impossible. This makes the protocol totally unique.
I recently saw what Prof Vodjani is going to recommend after a positive result to the barrier test he devised (the one I do) and I think my protocol is even more advanced, not least because, as usual, theirs contains grain-derived substances which rather negates the point in my view for many people.
By doing this Plan, you will take a massive step towards improving your future health. A broken barrier leads not just to allergy and intolerance, but via complex immune mechanisms like cross-reactivity and molecular mimicry, to raised inflammation levels and a high risk of auto-immunity.
Auto-immune diseases, which you hardly really ever consider but are rife, are the third leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the industrialised world, surpassed only by cancer and heart disease. However, experts believe that heart disease is a disease of inflammation and auto-immunity so added together, that makes auto-immunity the number one killer in the Western world.
Will you get better? I certainly hope so, but I am not going to guarantee it; we can’t possibly know what our individual bodies are capable of. Certainly, by following this Plan, you should see your sensitivity levels lower as you heal the broken body barriers and substances/foods can’t get through any more, you should reduce any damaging inflammation and stop any auto-immunity processes. It can take time, of course; this is a tough job for your body to achieve, but you CAN get there.